Effect of free surface and substrate topography on the self-assembly of block copolymer films

Theoretical and numerical studies have provided valuable insights in understanding and controlling the self-assembly of block copolymer systems, providing powerful guidelines to experimentalists. However, complicated geometric surface effects on the self-assembly are often ignored due to the limitation of previous simulation models to capture free surface effects, thus constraining systems to thin films with ad-hoc flat interfaces. In this work, we present our efforts on developing efficient simulation approaches to explore the self-assembly of complex polymeric systems with ability to develop, and interact, with non-flat interfaces. Effects of different substrate topographies and initial polymer volume shapes on the self-assembly kinetics are numerically investigated and compared with experimental data.